


毎朝, 毎晩

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Game(s), Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>(every morning, every evening)</em><br/>You and me, just like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	毎朝, 毎晩

It’s hard to know what to do, when Karkat is sick.  His boyfriend’s eyes are red in the edges, squinty-shut.  He’s hot to the touch, sweating hard - keeps coughing and blowing his nose and shivering. 

John remembers his father measuring out cough syrup and the sickly-sweet flow of it down his throat; remembers the smells of his father making tea and chicken noodle soup, the luxury of staying home from school.  He remembers the cool pressure of his father’s hand against his forehead, a gentle voice murmuring.

But what do you do for sick aliens?  Or, more pressingly, sick boyfriends?  John is not sure.

“Do you want some grubloaf?” he asks, throwing a shot in the dark.  Karkat mumbles something indistinct, and curls up, burying himself deeper into the pile.  John helped him pull it together; it was kind of funny to watch Karkat stumble around, bleary and ill and cursing miserably and trying to drag couch cushions up the stairs to his bedroom. 

But after a while Karkat stopped talking.  And then he started stumbling, and began to make that face he makes when he knows a thing is stupid but is about to cry anyway.  And then it was a little less funny.  So John helped settle Karkat down on a layer of pillows, and stacked a few more on top of him and laid the blankets on top of that, leaving his face clear.

“Does your throat hurt?” John asks.  He finds he’s aimlessly carding his fingers through Karkat’s sweaty, gross hair - brushing it off his forehead, sweeping it back to his horns.  Karkat grips the pillow in his arms a little harder, and nods minutely. 

Look at this guy.  What a pathetic picture.  John finds himself glancing at the window - shades letting in the afternoon sunlight, glass panes firmly shut.  He could turn up the thermostat a little… no, it’d be better to just move the space heater in.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises, and kisses Karkat’s gross, sweaty forehead.

“Tissues,” Karkat croaks, batting at John’s arm. 

“You could use a few, buddy,” John tells him.  “Your face is terrible.”

Karkat hisses.

The store’s pretty close, and John knows what he’s getting.  The weather is nice out.  He had aimless thoughts of taking Karkat out for a walk, or maybe calling up their friends and going to the beach, but he doesn’t really mind the change of not-plans.  Karkat is still fun to be around, even when he’s sick and miserable.

“Do you have troll medicine?” he asks at the counter.  The cashier stares at him - she wasn’t expecting him to ask any questions, there’s a small line.  “Medicine.  For trolls.  Or will Nyquil work?”

“Um, no.  But I think the pharmacy down the street carries Altquil,” she says.  “I think they’re open until nine.”

“Oh.  Okay, thanks.”  They stare at each other for an awkward moment.

“Please press credit or debit on the touchscreen, sir.”

“Right, right.”

“It’s that time of year, for the flu to go around.”

“Oh,” John says, taking his receipt.

When he gets home, their house is exactly the way he left it, but for some reason John wonders if Karkat moved.  If he tried to get up for something.  How long was he gone?

He has no reason to worry, though.  Karkat is right where John left him, wiping his nose on the cuff of his shirt and shuddering.  Right, the space heater, John should have done that first.  The plastic shopping bags crinkle as John sets them down on the carpet, a dull thump.

“Cut that out, I brought you tissues,” John says, tearing open a package.  Instead of firing back or grumbling about how shitty he feels, Karkat just takes them and starts making some wet, disgusting noises as he tries to clear his nostrils, tossing the used ones away.  By the time John gets back from the garage, lugging the space heater box with him, Karkat has built up a pretty substantial pile of snot-saturated Kleenex.

John decides he really doesn’t like it, when Karkat is sick.  He wonders if he could do anything to make him get better faster.  If he could try to keep the air in their house very clean, keep the germs to a minimum.  Ease the congestion in Karkat’s lungs and sinuses. 

“You’re a Knight of Blood, shouldn’t you have a better immune system?” he asks, but it’s mostly rhetorical.

“Fuck you too,” Karkat croaks at him.

“I brought you Jello,” John says, fishing around in one of the shopping bags and holding out a plastic spoon and a cold plastic container of fruity, lime-green gelatin.  “This one’s kiwi.  I think it has vitamins in it. There’s strawberry, too, but I don’t know if you want any.  I mean, it’s bright red.  It looks kind of -“

“Are you even capable of shutting up,” Karkat asks.  His voice sounds awful.  “Is that a thing you are actually not capable of doing.  In a clinical way.  Are you just not -“  He interrupts himself by coughing.  John peels the foil lid back, and shoves the spoon into Karkat’s weakly-clenched fist.

Karkat sighs, taking the little tub out of John’s hands and maneuvering the smallest possible spoonful into his mouth.  He tries chewing it, once, and then swallows.  Blinks. 

… Takes another spoonful.  Nice.  Score one for John.

“I got you some medicine, too,” John adds, to fill the silence.

“Oh,” Karkat says, blinking.  He scowls, or maybe he’s trying to look apologetic.  “I didn’t ask you to.”

“Yeah, well, it’s for trolls with troll illness, so maybe you should take some.”

“No, I meant - thanks.”

“You could thank me for the delicious Jello, too.”

“Fuck off,” Karkat says, but he keeps eating it, and sounds a little better.

The medicine makes Karkat really sleepy, but he stops coughing.  He manages to eat the soup John heats up on the stovetop for him, and drink some of the tea out of the only clean mug John could find.  It turns out John is actually pretty decent at taking care of his sick boyfriend.

He moves a small wastebasket next to Karkat’s pile, and puts his used tissues in it, and doesn’t even mind how gross they are from an objective standpoint.  Karkat is dozing now.  It’s getting dark out, but the hall light is on.

He won’t be able to sleep next to Karkat, like this.

It takes three days of medicine and trips to the store at odd hours to buy Karkat more Jello and canned soup, but he finally gets better.  It’s a relief when Karkat’s up and complaining again. 

It feels like life is back to normal, but also like John and Karkat have dodged something dangerous.  Like watching a car go by, and knowing in the back of your mind that it didn’t hit you.  John doesn’t like it when things take Karkat away from him.  He isn’t the sort of person to kick up a huge fuss about what he wants, or throw a tantrum when things don’t go his way, but he’s still a bit unsettled.

He is not in the habit of making wishes - not on airplane jet trails, and definitely not on meteors.  It’s more like a vague, earnest sense of hope.  As much as possible, John hopes that the things he loves will still be there tomorrow, unchanged.  Tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

“You’ve got a dumb look on your face,” Karkat says.  He’s wearing one of John’s hoodies.  It’s a little cloudy today, but the park is almost empty, and the trees cast soft velvet shadows on the grass as the sky goes orange and afternoon-pink.

“You’ve got a dumb boyfriend on your face,” John says.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Karkat asks, because he’s dumb, so John kisses him.

And he’ll kiss him tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.


End file.
